Yuga Labs has revealed that the Magic Eden Ethereum Marketplace is set to go live tomorrow. This moment is pivotal, as Magic Eden makes history as the first major marketplace to actively form partnerships with creators.
The platform promises a unique user experience with custom pages for collectors, loyalty rewards, and a concept known as contractual royalty enforcement. Yuga Labs and Magic Eden are taking a bold step forward to reestablish a connection with creators, emphasizing collaboration and fair compensation.
From the launch date, Yuga Labs said it would cease collaboration with marketplaces that do not fully support all creator royalties. This decision is an affirmation of the company’s commitment to ensure that creators receive their due compensation for their work. It added that collections with royalty filters from Yuga Labs will only be tradable on platforms that respect and enforce creator royalties at the protocol level.
In a statement, Yuga Labs emphasized the importance of royalties, stating, “Royalties are the lifeline that keeps creators building fun, world-changing, and innovative activations in space.” The move to sunset support for marketplaces lacking royalty support aligns with Yuga Labs’ vision for a more creator-friendly NFT ecosystem.
Yuga Labs is a U.S.-based company established in 2021. It was primarily recognized for creating and developing various Non-Fungible Token (NFT) projects, particularly the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which became the largest NFT project when it first launched.
It was co-founded by Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, operating under the aliases Gordon Goner and Gargamel until revealing their identities publicly. The company expanded its portfolio by acquiring renowned NFT projects like CryptoPunks and Meebits and introducing a metaverse project named Otherside. It has also bought out PROOF with its collections, such as Moonbird.
Magic Eden is a community-centric NFT marketplace that serves as a platform for the next generation of creators. Founded by a team with diverse backgrounds in crypto, DeFi, consumer internet companies, and management consulting, Magic Eden aims to address gaps in existing NFT marketplaces by offering a core secondary marketplace with significant liquidity.
It has also taken steps to support creators’ royalties by introducing the Open Creator Protocol (OCP), a tool built on Solana’s SPL-managed token standard. This protocol enforces royalties on all new collections that choose to opt-in, providing creators with the option to protect their royalties.
